


Toni Stark, The Starkest One Alive

by Violettavonviolet



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, At least for a bit, Awesome James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Awesome Jarvis (Iron Man movies), BAMF Pepper Potts, BAMF Tony Stark, Childhood, F/M, Female Tony Stark, Gen, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark at MIT, Jarvis (Iron Man movies) is a Good Bro, Kid Tony Stark, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Steve Rogers is confused, Thor has holy muscles, Tony Stark Does What He Wants, Tony Stark is a fangirl, Wordcount: 10.000-30.000, ceo tony stark, how is that not a tag?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 08:06:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20963240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Violettavonviolet/pseuds/Violettavonviolet
Summary: Antonia Stark, the only heir of Stark Industries, was destined to greatness from her very birth.The moment she first opened her eyes and screamed,the world stopped spinning and just for a moment there was silence, and then the earth began to spin again with the knowledge that things wold never be the same.





	Toni Stark, The Starkest One Alive

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y’all,  
I’m extremely proud to present my newest fanfiction.  
This baby was 23 and a half written pages in real life and about 15 in word. This is the longest fanfiction I have ever written, over 2000 words more than my former longest fanfiction, which by the way in not here on ao3 or even a marvel fanfiction at all.  
But here I am, with this 10000+ words fanfic, and I can’t stop talking about it. I think my family thinks that I’m crazy, but I guess they thought that before too, so there’s that.  
And here I am talking/ writing too much again really,  
you aren't here to read? me talking/writing, you’ve come here to read.  
I hope you enjoy it:

The moment of her birth was a moment of disappointment.  
Her mother too tired to realize that she did in fact not bore a boy, but a girl, gave her away into the waiting arms of a nurse, thankful that the birth was over.  
Just as she first cried,  
her father entered the room followed by one of his business partners and her godmother.  
One look at her and he was in range! His heir was a girl!  
Without sparing her another glance, he stormed out of the door, followed by his partner.  
She was left behind in the arms of the perplexed nurse until her aunt took her.  
As expected Maria was displeased when she woke up again to find her husband missing and a daughter in her arms.  
Still she named her daughter and the proceeded to abandon her into the arms of the butler. Jarvis, the butler, however saw the first glimpse of little Antonias eyes and fell in love. This wouldn’t change over time, no, his love would grow, to one of the biggest of his entire life. 

Little Antonia was an easy child, she cried seldom, only if she required food, and otherwise she was quiet. That was until she started to babble, which was exceptionally early, and soon enough she spoke whole sentences and happily talked with Jarvis, who was basically her only caretaker. Her first word was of course “Jarvis” her second “up” and her third “no”. 

Soon she crawled around mansion and demanded Jarvis’ attention near constantly.  
The first two years of her life were quite good, but as it got clearer that Antonia was indeed a genius, the more attention she not only got from the maids but from the press as well. She built her first circuit board with four, and Jarvis knew that the quiet times would be over soon.  
However not only the press was attracted by her genius, Howard was as well. He suddenly stepped forwards out of the shadow that was his work and workshop. Before he had little to no impact on the life of his daughter but now, now he smelled the money that his daughter would be. He took the little girl down to his workshop full of possibly dangerous machines, especially for four year old girls.  
She however, was extremely happy that she had finally gained the attention of her father. She didn’t really know what being a father meant, but she had seen one on TV and Jarvis had told her that he wasn’t her father but that Howard was, which was odd because Howard never played with her like Jarvis did, but Jarvis wouldn’t lie to her so it must be true!

But the work in the workshop wasn’t as fun as she had first thought. Howard made her hold onto stuff that burned her hands, or stuff that she would cut herself on. She always took it anyway, because she didn’t want to disappoint him, she wanted him to be proud of her. Every evening she would come up again, a little less childish and with more burns and cuts on her skin. Jarvis had to witness everything but couldn’t do more than shedding a silent tear for the girl he thought of as his daughter changing for the worse. What he could do however, was braiding her hair into two small braids every morning so that it would not catch on fire or get caught in the machines down at the workshop. 

Maria however was a completely different topic, whatsoever.  
She couldn’t really handle the fact that she birthed a girl.  
That didn’t mean that she wasn’t around Antonia, she was, whenever a new event arose, putting her in frilly dresses with cruel hands, straightening her hair and “accidentally” burning her ears on more than one occasion.  
Antonia was required to stand next to her mother and look pretty on those events, while Maria was completely ignorant of the hunger that Antonia felt, because the only thing present was alcohol.  
And that was not even starting on the boredom that Antonia had to endure, as she wasn’t allowed to do anything but standing. 

When she was sent to boarding school with girls way ahead of her age, it was almost a relief, wouldn’t there have been Jarvis and her Captain America poster, one of many things that she had in common with her father, her absolute adoration of Captain America. Sadly both Jarvis and the Captain were left at home.  
Had she first thought of school as some kind of relief she quickly had to change her mind.  
The other girls, that were up to four years older than her, where cruel and they did not take kindly to such a young girl outsmarting them all. More often than not, her homework disappeared or her uniform was destroyed over night.  
However the staff of the school did not like her either, thinking that she somehow thought that she was above them, so nobody believed her story but Jarvis.  
With no other options at hand, she studied harder and jumped grades faster than ever. She built her first engine while on brake, at the tender age of eight, which again had her earning popularity. 

She was in the last grate of middle school, a school that was definitely better than the former. She had no new friends, or really any friends, but she had long since stopped expecting that. Instead she was rather content with her live now. 

With 10 she was about to begin High school but in the first two weeks of attending she jumped up to senior year.  
The time there was okay as the other students were content with their own stress and problems, they mostly didn’t bother her.  
Her celebrity status was also a factor which was the only plus side of it, at least n her opinion. The year flew by and she had her graduation day in no time.  
Of course neither Howard or Maria bothered to attend but that had long since stopped hurting her, she just enjoyed the day with Jarvis and her aunt Peggy who had taken a day off just for her. It was a pretty good day really, one that Antonia cherished to no end knowing that days like this would get rarer and rarer, especially with her starting college in no time. With her college application sent away to MIT, for a double major engineering and physics as well as a few other courses, mainly math orientated, she had one last summer before she would go away for real. She wasn’t nervous per se but it was indeed a big change in her life. Her father would be away for the entire two months of her stay and her mother was on a charity trip to Italy and wouldn’t be back until October, so she would not get to say goodbye to either of them, not that she wanted to of course. 

She had chosen MIT herself, not only because of the distance to home but because of the opportunities the school had to offer as well. The labs were supposed to be amazing and they had a lot of fun stuff on campus.  
She still wore the braids, she had been wearing since primary, but otherwise she planned to not go as Antonia Stark, she hadn’t been that person in a long time, if that person had ever really existed. The girl the media portrayed, was not the girl she aspired to be. She was Toni, just Toni. End she would visit MIT as such, she didn’t give a damn what the media would think about it, she just wanted to enjoy her stay there.

In the second week of summer, she bought an entirely new wardrobe, clothes that she liked, not her mother. Maria would probably scream if she ever came around to look at her daughter nowadays. Everything was of a darker coloring, comforting really, mostly sweats and hoodies, a few ripped jeans and occasionally one or two scandalously low cut dresses, because Tonis thinking was that if she was supposed to go to college, she would damn well act like a college student.  
Not that she would get to know many other students, as she would be living alone, which was fine for her, nobody should be expected to handle her lifestyle. 

The time came, she had to go. She didn’t cry, she had stopped with that a long time ago, still she would miss Jarvis.  
College was great, no really, the others might talk to her like they would to a three year old and nobody took a thing she said serious, but that was okay, expected really.  
She was definitely an outcast but that was nothing new either, was it? The bulling stopped too, nobody had time for something so insignificant anymore. Everything was one big bubble until she met him, Rhodey. One day she came late to one of her classes, and the only free seat was next to a sleeping black guy, who suddenly sat up as she sat down next to him. He had dark circles under his eyes, but that was a look a lot of college students rocked so nothing weird there. He however greeted her, which was a new experience and he could rightfully answer the question the professor asked, which yeah, pretty impressive.  
The professor then promptly proceeded to partner them up in a project, again nothing new.  
They exchanged numbers and the following day met in the library, they understood each other right away, and the rest is history. They aced their project and became best friend for ever. Rhodey was perfect, smart, kind, protective and he did not belittle her ones because of her age! Often enough Rhodey ended up bunking on her couch after a particularly long film marathon. The gossip magazines had a field day about their “relationship,” but miraculously enough, Rhodey didn’t care! Then Christmas came, and Rhodey had to go, while she had to stay.

Jarvis had called earlier and told her that she couldn’t come home, her parents would be traveling the whole time. Which was sort of sad as she had missed Jarvis a lot but it was no surprise, what was a surprise was Rhodey’s reaction, who stood in front of her closet the day before the break would start, throwing her stuff into her bag. If asked what he was doing he answered that he was obviously packing her bag. She protested a bit, but Rhodey stopped mid packing and told her hat she was coming home with him. He didn’t even ask he just said it as the statement that it was. She argued a bit, but she really did come with him at the end.  
She was incredibly nervous of course, but she needn’t have worried, Mama Rhodes was kindness in person, she was the most motherly person that she had ever met. One look at Toni and she was adopted. The time with the Rhodes family flew by like a dream, baking cookies and telling embarrassing stories all day long. But all good things have to end and so they had to go back to school way too early for either of them. In the following years a lot happened, but the best was Dum-E, her little robot son, the first of many she was sure. Dum-E had an unhealthy attraction to fire-extinguishers but that was okay, she had written him mostly sleep deprived so that explained one or two quirks, which didn’t mean that she loved him any less, how could she, he was her son after all. U was her next son, also born in College, Dum-E had felt alone, and that was something she could never allow her son to feel. She coded him with significantly more sleep and coffee in her bloodstream so he was a lot easier to handle, but he too had his quirks, for one he really really liked party hats for some reason or another. College was in many ways the best time of her life, but it also had to stop.  
Despite the claims of the public she had never once even touched a beer. 

With fifteen she graduated with two Phd’s in engineering and physics. She would later come back and earn five more, but for now she was done. For once her parents were actually present for graduation day, but she suspected it was more for the press than for her. She had to say goodbye to Rhodey, who would now join the air-force and would be away overseas for a while. She was welcomed home by Jarvis which was definitely good for her, as she was especially sad to have to let go of her one true friend.  
A few days after her initial arrival back home she had a big fight with her father which was the reason why she wasn’t joining her parents at an event that very evening. Which turned out to be a good decision as her father drove himself and Maria to death.  
She had not slept since her arrival so when she went to sleep and was woken up at three in the morning by one off the house-staff members she was first reasonably disorientated, until the Maid stopped apologizing and actually said what happened, then she was completely awake. Her parents, dead, her first reaction was sadness but not for long as she had never really had any family bonds with her parents.  
Her next reaction was shock, when the will of her parents was read. She was the sole heiress to the Stark empire and to all the fortune of her now dead parents, every house, car and even every plant was now hers to decide what to do with.  
At fifteen near sixteen every camera was on her everyone wanted to know what she was going to do now.  
The funeral of her parents was so incredibly fake she nearly wanted to puke. In all the speeches held on that day not one word was said about Maria. Everyone talked about the greatness of her father, as if. She wore shades, not to hide tears as everyone surely believed but to hide the dryness of her eyes, why would she cry over somebody she never got to know? 

At least the company was not her problem until she would turn eighteen and she Ould not be the sole CEO until she was twenty-one so that was not a bother to her now. That however didn’t mean that she didn’t need to work her ass off for the company. She had to produce weapon after weapon so that the Stockmarket points wouldn’t drop too much after her father died. She produced idea after idea so that the board would not come and hunt her ass down. In the little free time that she had she decided to go back to College where she got Phd after Phd. With twenty she decided she might as well have some fun before she was the CEO for good. She got herself into the Miss America contest solely because she could. And also because of a bet she had with Rhodey but we’re never going to mention that again, ever. She was born with a camera in her face and she learned to walk on the red carpets of the world, she was perfect for the contest.  
She won, of course she did, who better as Miss America than Antonia Stark?

When she was made the CEO of Stark Industries at twenty-one she already had quite a reputation of her own, as a genius of course but also as some kind of slut. Of course nobody dared to say that to her face but it was pretty clear. Which she was not, she was obviously in no way a nun, but as slutty as some tabloids liked to portray her, no definitely not. The board members weren’t exactly forthcoming over a twenty-one year old girl taking the seat as CEO but they could’t do anything about it either.  
She doubled the income of the company in the first two years of her reign and those who still were sceptic at first, were okay with it. More money for the company after all, meant more money for them. 

Then, Jarvis got ill, really ill, and not even the best doctors in the world could do anything about old age, and she tried, she really did.  
On the day that Jarvis closed his eyes for the last time, she cried, she cried tears that were hold back for a long time, she cried and cried and cried, until there were no tears left to cry. Afterwards sh was harder than ever, her last bit of parental guidance and love died and with him a small part of her. The next time she came out in public she was clothed in black from head to toe with a big pair of expensive sunglasses to hide her puffy red eyes. The only bit of color on her was the bright red lipstick, nobody even dared to approach her, instead she received a new nickname, the mistress of death.  
She read it and laughed and wore the title with pride, red lipstick and killer heels. Her braids were finally opened and they would only go back to braids in the darkness of her workshop.

Her workshop became her safe-space, away from the trouble of the public and expectations of the board.  
There she got the Idea for her most complicated Idea yet. Over days, weeks even months she did not come out of her. Workshop, until, finally, her third son was born, JARVIS, in memory of the best person she ever got to know. She cried again when he responded, when she finally heard the voice of her beloved Jarvis again.  
From there on she would never be alone again for the rest of her life, or at least she hoped so. JARVIS was the biggest help that she ever had, and his snark and love for her was so good, he gave her the confidence and pride to pursue one of her goals, developing machines and helpers for other branches than just military.  
Slowly but surely her brandname was found in every household, Laptops, Smartphones, laundry-machines, dishwashers, the mixers and heaters as well as a thousand other products were developed and the spotlight was on her, again. First the board-members called her crazy, develop more weapons instead they said, but she ignored them and their profits rose again so they kept their mouths shut, mostly.  
Just Obadiah, one of the old business-partners of her father seemed to oddly dislike the new development but she couldn’t care less about hiss opinion. 

With twenty-eight her life again turned for the better, this turn, came in form of a person with fiery red hair and a fury not known to mankind until then, her name was Virginia Potts and she would turn out to be one of the strongest influences of her life.  
One quite afternoon Toni had heard a rumble going on in front of her Office door, then her door was slammed open by an angry looking ginger. “Miss Stark, there’s something you need to see!” Toni was not often impressed but that Lady over there had impressed her, much. There was an error in the numbers which could have cause potentially about three million dollar worth of loss.  
Fifteen minutes later a sourly looking security guard stormed in and started to apologize for the disturbance and then tried to get Virginia out of the door, mumbling about how this crazy girl pepper sprayed him when he wouldn’t let her enter. That was the last straw that persuaded Toni, Virginia, now Pepper, was hired on the spot.  
Pepper was now her PA which was definitely on the five top best things Toni ever decided to do. 

Pepper was perfect for the position, she understood Toni but still didn’t let shit pass, and she organized her day so that Toni still had time to do something other than work.  
Under her watchful eyes Toni created her fourth and probably last son, at least for now. Butterfingers was in many ways better coded then Dum-E or U but he still had his own little quirks, that made him unique. 

And her life still didn’t show a sign of any kind of downer in her near future, Rhodey was now her military liaison and wasn’t that just the topping on the cherry on top of her life right now? Things couldn’t go any better if she tried too.  
Not too long after that she finally met the last addition to her family for a long time, Happy Hogan, a man that was despite his name never really happy and had the vibe of a big fluffy bear coming from him. He was always discontent but she loved him and he was not just the perfect driver! He was her bodyguard too, and the very best one she ever had, and he always had time to drive her around, if to Chicago or New York he didn’t care, and if he had to drive her home from Las Vegas at three in the morning and was required to wear a party hat while doing so? He did it, no questions asked. 

But life couldn’t stay amazing forever, at thirty-two Afghanistan happened, it was supposed to be a simple presentation, one of her last weapon presentation for ever, she planned to close that branch for good in the near future and had already talked about it with Rhodey who was okay with her decision after a while. 

Then everything had exploded around her, and she woke up in a cave. Someone operated on her, without narcosis, and she soon blacked out again. The next time she woke up, she had an electromagnet connected to a car battery in her chest and a hole in her sternum. Next to her a man was shaving his beard, Yinsen as she would later find out. The ten rings had captured her, they wanted a weapon, a weapon she was supposed to build. She declined, so they had to go on and torture her, it was almost hilarious how cliché they acted, if she wasn’t the one being waterboarded at the time. Finally she agreed to built them the damn thing, with no intent to do just that. The first thing she did was building a smaller version of the arc reactor, it was after all really annoying to have to constantly drag the damn car battery around and oh, she didn’t want to die in a week, which she would grow accustomed too over time, but for then, it wasn’t what she wanted. And then she could finally start to build a way out, and those idiots even gave her the material that she needed for that. She also got to know Yinsen a little more, she learnt that he was a Doctor once, and that he lived in Gulmira together with his family.  
They had of late night talks shared in the darkness and coldness of the icy nights of the desert. She built her very first armor there, hoping that her guards wouldn’t realize just what she was building right there, and luckily they didn’t. She escaped but Yinsen, Yinsen died and that was a mistake she would never be able to forget about. 

Rhodey found her in the midst of the desert, nearly dried out and in pain. He carried her back to the base the whole time whispering soothing nothings into her ear. She slept for a long time while the doctors checked her over, trying desperately not to remember the pain that doctors caused her in the cave. She was deemed fine after a little while and not too long after she was on her ay back to her family, she was met at the airport by a puffy eyed Pepper, and a rather relieved looking Happy. Pepper hugged her for a whole two minutes while Toni helplessly patted her back. They entered the car together and she got one of her wishes in a matter of minutes. Two cheeseburgers in a bag and one in her Hand, they drove off to the press conference she had ordered. She was met there by Obadiah, which was a little strange but she had other things to worry about at the time. 

She ordered the journalists to sit down, and started the press conference, after a few normal questions, she made a statement that she had wanted to make for as long as she could remember, she closed the weapons department. It was a shock too many but the few that had actually followed the news could have predicted it years ago. She quickly explained a few public reasons and she made sure that they understood that it wasn’t going to be a major downfall for the company. Sure a few were displeased but a few always were. She answered a few other questions hinted at the possible introduction of a few new smartphones next month and then she left the stage. Behind her the mass was quiet all to shocked at what had just happened.  
She could hear Obadiah following her and sure enough he came up next to her a few seconds later. He told her how displeased he was and that she couldn’t do such a thing.  
And then he had the audacity to ask to see the arc reactor, as if. She told him very clearly that no, he could not and never would see her breast in his life. At least he was polite enough to get red at her Comment. He talked and talked and talked until she had enough. No, she would not take her statement back, and no she would not let him produce more weapons. Really was that man stupid or something? Her father must have had nerves to work together with such a douchebag! Well, he was one himself but, oh well thats actually a pretty good reason.  
She abruptly turned and left Obadiah behind. 

She returned to Happy who drove her home in silence.  
She was unbelievably glad to be back when she finally saw her mansion and JARVIS. She nearly cried again when she entered her workshop and her little bots all came up and hugged her, or tried as much as it was possible for them. Toni had cried more in the last few days than she had since the death of Jarvis. She was tired, just tired. But she couldn’t rest just yet. There was a lot she had to think about and act upon. She stayed out of the limelight for a while, the only real break she allowed herself to take. She had after all an armor waiting to be build. Not to mention her reactor who was in a dear need of an upgrade, it might have been good enough for her in the cave but not now, when she was home again. The reactor always hurt, she had grown accustomed to it but still, it was a thing that was keeping her from working properly. So that was her first action back in the mansion, she build a new one just to notice a small problem, she could in no way install this herself. And her bots were great but not so great that they could handle something like this. Luckily for her, Pepper was present upstairs at the time.  
Pepper did it, but Toni swore to herself that she would build the next one so that she could install it herself.  
It was out of question that there would be a next one, this one was far from perfect, but it was enough for the time being. 

She had to sort trough her wardrobe though, which was kind of sad but there was no way the media would get to see this, she would never expose such a great vulnerability to the public.  
So all her low cut dresses had to go, instead she ordered a ton of back free dresses with a high neckline at the top.  
She also had to watch out so that the materials weren’t light in anyway, because otherwise the light of her reactor would be noticed and as mentioned before that was an absolute no go. But she was a bit paranoid so she build another little thing, a cap of light absorbent skin like material which she used to cover up the reactor for good, so even if she had the wish to once again wear a low cut dress someday in the future she could without exposing the reactor to the public eye. 

That was however a small matter of concern for her, more so was her armor, which occupied most of her time. She was just about to give the armor the last bit, the coloring when the TV caught her eyes. Apparently she was hosting a gala and she had not even gotten an invitation, which again odd. Something were weird since she came back, but she couldn’t really pinpoint what it was. That wasn’t really something new for her, she was accustomed to her brain being faster than she could ever hope to think.  
She however didn’t spend much more time thinking about it. She noticed however what the reporter said and she quite liked it. So her suit would be red, not completely, she didn’t want to be a flying tomato but parts, and really, it looked stunning. 

Jarvis would produce her armor but that wold take a while, so she decided to fuck it, and play dress up for the world. After all every Stark hosted event should be the talk of the week and how would that happen if she wasn’t there to make it happen?  
So she chose one of her new gorgeous gowns and went with it. It was exactly the same red color as her future armor would be, how fitting.  
She drove herself, in her favorite Audi R8, Happy deserved his evening. 

She was welcomed by the flashlights of cameras, god how much she hated those events, but it was how her world functioned and it wouldn’t change even if she wished for it with all her heart. She quickly walked over the red carpet and into the hall, straight to the bar.  
“One gin tonic, please” The bartender nodded and one was passed to her. A man in a suit walked up to her, “Hello miss Stark, my name is Agent Coulson I am an agent of the strategic homeland International emission,” “wait, stop, okay so you are an agent of some super secret spy organization, ok, dude, did anyone ever tell you that you should find a shorter name? No one in their right mind remembers your name, ok?” “I have heard that before, yes, anyway we would like to interview you over you caption in Afghanistan.”  
Toni didn’t really listen to the agent but he didn’t seem to care and he was resistant so she just agreed to that stupid interview, not even caring on which date it would be. Instead she just shoved him off to Pepper which yeah was kind of a dick move but she really couldn’t handle him right now.  
Coulson looked surprised himself that she had agreed so easily but it didn’t face her one bit. She had found Pepper in a wonderful blue dress in the middle of the hall. She got up and was just about to cross the hall to get to her but the universe seemed to find it amusing to not have her have one calm second and so some reporter chick she vaguely remembered stood in front of her, hindering her from leaving. 

“You know I really believed your good samaritan thing for a second, but you fooled us again did you? Have you ever heard of a small city called Gulmira? These photos were taken yesterday there.” She showed her a few pictures of Gulmira, destroyed with stark bombs. This was definitely not something she agreed upon, and that was something she would never allow. Her company was obviously double dealing under the table! Pepper was forgotten, she spied Obadiah standing on the other side of the room talking to some reporters. She calmly stepped away from the journalist and got to Obadiah in no time. She grapped his shoulder and turned him so that the where face to face. “You’ve got somethings to explain.” “Toni, whatever it is, I hope it can wait for later.” “No, it can’t.” She whispered into his ear ”We are double dealing Obadiah, and I don’t think you understand the seriousness of that. I did not allow this, and I am long past the point were I overlooked a few missing numbers in your report? Do you understand” Obadiah looked shocked and honestly a little bit stupid, but she couldn’t care any less. She turned around to face the reporters, “Who wants a few photos?” She didn’t give Obadiah a chance to answer, the only thing he could do was smile. 

She left afterwards, still in shock over the happenings of the evening. While she drove a plan formed in her head. In the break of dawn she started to train flying and possibly fighting with her newly made armor, she hadn’t however accounted on the difficulty that flying was. But within a few days she felt safe enough to fly outside of her workshop, it had taken her a while to figure it out and more fire extinguisher foam was used then she would have liked but that was just how it was. All the while her companies stock prizes fell over 40 points which didn’t really bother her but it made Pepper unhappy and when Pepper was unhappy she was unhappy.  
Anyway, she was now ready to begin her first real flight, despite the claims of Jarvis, and it was honestly amazing. Flying was the best feeling that she had ever felt in her life.  
It was freedom in a suit, it was honestly, what she felt couldn’t be packed into words.  
Sooner than she would have liked the first few problems arose, it seemed like her suit was not as resistant as she had anticipated, it froze when flying in too high-zones, but that would hopefully be easy to fix, by using another material, it had the added bonus of being shiny gold which was in all honesty great. Soon she felt confident enough to go by her initial plan, and that plan worked out fine, really! Well, until the air-force decided to shoot her out of the sky. Luckily they didn’t manage that thanks to her sugarplum, so she wrote it down as a plus on her side. 

Back at home everything seemed fine, until it wasn’t. Someone destroyed her whole world, again. Ever since she came back, she had a tinkle of suspicion which grew with every added day. But now everything seemed clear, Obadiah was the problem. Something wasn’t right about him, his reaction and his overall manner.  
After she finally but everything together a thousand things happened in a matter of hours. Obadiah had sold her to terrorists, he had sold weapons under the table, and he had tried to build himself a suit just like hers, and he had the audacity to think that his was better, men! Obadiah literally grapped her heart, or the thing close enough to one to be considered a heart, and pulled it out of her chest and then went on and paralyzed her with her own weapon! She was incredibly thankful for Dum-E who maybe wasn’t just a dummy after all. And then she, or Pepper really, killed him. She presented herself as the “Iron Queen” respectively, really why did they think of her as a man first? There was a lot of publicity after that stunt but it was so worth it! The looks she received afterwards were amazing, ridiculous even. 

And still, they all were ignorant to the amount of power she possessed, one snap with her fingers and whole lives would be destroyed whole companies would cease to exit if she so chose. And they somehow still overlooked everything and thought of her as some kind of stupid playgirl that lived solely off of her fathers fame.  
Really they all were stupid, stupid sheep and if she wasn’t as kind as she was she could have easily taken the world over officially.  
Unofficially she already ruled most parts of it, everywhere was her name, in every magazine and home. She as the one with power and she didn’t plan to change anything about it.  
Obadiah was just one of many examples that underestimated her and payed for it, in everything she build was a backdoor she alone could use, call her paranoid but she wouldn’t trust again easily. However she mused that didn’t really matter now anymore really, she was dying and not a thing could change that, or at least not a thing that she had discovered until now.  
It was honestly ironic, she would die from the thing that was designed to keep her alive.  
If she would turn the reactor off she would be dead in minutes if she left it on she would be dead in under a year. 

The world didn’t stop spinning just because she desperately wished for it, Hammer was still as much of a pain in her ass as ever.  
He changed his manner towards her constantly, either jealously staring at her or trying cheesy pick-up lines on her. It was really annoying, and being in the same room as him made her want to bang her head against the wall repeatedly, hard.  
On another note, she had thought of making Pepper the CEO but then she decided against it, she made sure that Pepper would be CEO after death but until then she wasn’t allowed to show any signs of weakness and that would be the ultimate sign. What she did do however was the Expo, which ended in total chaos, honestly she could have predicted it.  
A month prior she had sneakily given Rhodey his own suit, even if he did not know it at that point in time, but he would be the heir of her suits, all of them. The Iron Queen would go on even after her death or maybe it would become Iron King?  
It troubled her a bit that Hammer was touching one of her suits, but she could suck it up for the time being. That was until Rhodey had no control over his suit anymore at the Expo. The result of that stunt was a massive increase in her blood toxicity, the palladium poisoning was getting worse and it wasn’t all fun and games no more.  
Luckily enough for her, Hammer was put into prison so that he may never be seen again.  
What was no fun at all was the spy that had infiltrated her company, and that spy didn’t just infiltrate her company but she also built up a supposed friendship with Toni herself and Pepper and that betrayal hurt. Rushman or Romanoff now, she mused, was a little too close to Obadiah’s example to ever be really trusted anymore, sure the ting she had pumped into her didn’t poison her but made her feel better but it was the way she did it that counted. But hey, put that aside, and the serum gave her the time to make the most badass thing ever, create a new element. 

Turns out her father did have some kind of weird fatherly love for her.  
Or not, the video was obviously fake, she had been there on that day for gods sake and she could remember nearly everything that had happened to her since she was two! She knew that her father had been shouting at the camera the whole time, she didn’t know where the hell they had gotten his voice from that it sounded so nice but honestly he said she was his best “creation”. First of all her fathers best creation wasn’t her but Captain America and second of all creation? Really?  
That was not something a father should ever call his own child.  
And he didn’t create her, she did. She did it with every step she made. Howard really hadn’t had that much of an input on her life. He wasn’t even there for the most part alive or dead, either way. She had made herself the way everyone else saw her she had taught nearly everything she knew about anything other than human contact, she wasn’t really good at that. Yeah she could get a boy into her bed if she wanted too but she didn’t even need to try for that, most of them threw themselves at her.  
She wouldn’t complain about the video, it did have the key to help her rescue herself and that was something worth a damn lot.  
So she made an element out of nothing, and the only thing helping her was the shield of Captain America, which was also kinda metaphoric if you think about it but she didn’t so it wasn’t.  
The new core to her reactor was perfect, even though it made everything kinda taste like Coconut and she really didn’t like that.  
It made her hope to see her forties how unlikely that might be. 

In the aftermath of her near death, a whole lot of crying was going on, not on her side, on Rhodey’s of course but he would deny that until the end.  
And Nick Fury visited her to tell her that she was in fact not recommended to join his little band, which was not really necessary in her eyes, why tell her that she was not in something that she hadn’t even known of in the first place? But here’s the bummer; the Iron Queen was recommended, which didn’t make sense at all, how hard was it to understand that the Iron Queen and her were one and the same? She had said that exact thing on national television about ten months before. They hadn’t realized that, which proved the thesis again that not everybody was as smart as she was.  
They did want her as a consultant so they at least seemed to notice that they would need her. So to be short they knew that they needed her, but didn’t want the burden that she was full time. Really she was amused, and the thing Nick proposed sounded like it could be funny, so she rolled with it for now. 

It quieted down after that, but of course it couldn’t stay like this until after her tower was up and running for some time. The evening her and especially Peppers baby would start working, she got a visit from the bad kind. Agent Coulson came and handed over a new file, Loki. She had to fly to Stuttgart, which wasn’t nice at all. But then she got to fight next to her childhood hero and teenage crush, which was great. The next few hours were a rollercoaster of ups and downs. She got to take a crazy god into custody, which yeah was just as badass as it sounded. She was just talking to Coulson, when she finally got to meet the avengers. “Iridium, what would they need Iridium for?”  
"It's a stabilizing agent." Toni drawled, she had always liked a dramatic entrance. “It means the portal won't collapse on itself, like it did at SHIELD. Also, it means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long, as Loki wants." She ignored the stunned looks she received, it wasn’t like they couldn’t have figured that out themselves it wasn’t that hard, she herself hadn’t known much about the topic until last night. She walked up to the what was that, a stage? There she covered one eye. "How does Fury do this?"  
The woman that stood next to her answered, “He turns.” Well, that sounded hella annoying. Ah the others were looking at her weirdly, right, back to the topic. She went to stand next to the doctor but couldn’t resist to pat the biceps of the literal god in the room along the way, who could have? Sure they had fought mare hours ago but she could overlook that for these muscles, holy shit she sounded like some teenaged girl, but those biceps…  
“Natasha” she nodded to the spy that already sat at the table as well, but avoided her gaze otherwise.  
“Excuse me, madam, but who are you?”The Captain, always so polite. “Excellent question, one point for you Capsicle, I am Toni Stark, the Iron Queen.”  
Suddenly Thor stood up, “Another royalty, please, excuse me for not introducing myself properly. I am Thor, Son of Odin, heir to the throne of Asgard” Oh wow, I mean he wasn’t wrong but, well, “Thor, I am sorry to disappoint you, I am not a royal, at least not by title, there are few royals left on earth but I think I do come nearest to your definition of royalty.” Nobody ever said that she was humble. Thor looked slightly disappointed but not by much. Captain America still looked stunned, honestly man keep up. She finally arrived in front of the doctor who stood up as well: "It's good to meet you, Dr. Banner. Your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster.”  
Aww, Banner was a full body blusher, at least from the parts that she could see. “Dr. Stark, I am amazed at the possibility to work with you.” “And thats the reason why you are here, Stark, Banner I want you to work on the scepter.”  
From there on, a lot of things happened. 

Their project was easy enough which left enough time for her to poke Bruce who was surprisingly calm about it, Cap wasn’t, spoilsport.  
They discovered the phase two which was supposed to make weapons out of the tesseract, which that was a real blow to the gut.  
She had already said it before she would never ever make weapons again or help make weapons without her knowing every single one that worked on the weapons and everyone that would fight with the weapons. She would never support this, never! She was extremely mad which led to a big fight within the “team” and with her childhood hero alone, and it wasn’t pretty. He said something that hurt more than she led on. Her answer to the question who she was without her suit resembled in no way her actual thoughts on the matter. The utter disgust in her opponent was in no way pretty, but before it could really turn into a fight, Hawkeye attacked them, and she had to work together with the Cap and good god had nobody given him any kind of a summary on the future?  
That man was just utterly confused, it hurt to look at him.  
Anyway, they lived to see another day but Bruce was gone and Coulson was dead.  
Yeah as if, that little cockroach wasn’t going to die the first time something serious happened, she knew that he sill lived, besides everyone and their dog knew that Coulson always kept his trade-cards in his locker and not in his suit.  
But she had no time to investigate further Loki was gone as well, but Barton was back which definitely counted as a plus, and that little bastard of a god would make a portal on top of Peppers baby, which yeah sounded kinda ridiculous but was actually really serious.  
But before she flew to her tower to fight Loki she took a few seconds to admire Americas Ass™ which by the way was a really damn fine ass although that uniform did nothing for it. She would so design him a new one just because of his butt, however Cap didn’t need to know that did he? 

She then rushed to her tower, but Loki was already there. Was that douchebag just as smoking back in Stuttgart or did he have a makeover or something in between? She knew he was a super-villain but damn, you could probably cut yourself on those cheekbones! Those cheekbones didn’t matter right now though, she had to think about a plan to somehow keep Loki entertained until JARVIS was ready with a suit her other one was not usable anymore. She knew her bracelets for the automatic armor lay behind the bar but she didn’t know if she Ould be able to reach the bar. Well, she just had to pray, there was no time for another plan. She entered the room without armor on which was maybe not the best decision ever but, you only live once! “Please tell me you’ve come to appeal to my humanity.” “Actually no, I’m here to threaten you.” That was honestly ridiculous but she didn’t know what else to say.  
“You want a drink, I’m getting myself a drink” “Stalling won’t help you either.” Hah, he had no Idea this whole thing was one big move of stalling. And mission accomplished, she had her bracelets on hopefully without him noticing it. He went on an evil monologue, and I was honestly not listening to him or myself. I was calculating the time that was needed still until the suit would be done, just a little more time, come on.  
Loki seemingly couldn’t decide if he found me amusing or annoying. He then tried to make me one of his mindless minions but it didn’t work, either I had too much brain to be controlled or the reactor was kind of magic resistant. She was pretty sure it was the second though. Hmmm she would have to make a few more tests later on, this was truly interesting. If the reactor truly reflected magic then she would have to test how much magic it was and if the effect could be replicated without a reactor in the chest. She made some kind of sex joke like she always did but something seemed to set Loki off. 

He grapped her by the throat choked her and not in the kinky way either and then threw her out of a window.  
That hurt like a bitch, those were fucking hard windows and a human body especially without suit wasn’t made to be thrown around like some stupid ball, that would definitely give her a sore throat, who was she kidding a sore body, for the next few days or so, maybe longer. She fell at least 20 or so feet until she finally felt the suit around her. That was definitely going to be stuff for her nightmares and she really didn’t need more stuff for nightmares. She had a slight feeling that this would not be the only memory of today that would end up in her nightmares. The others had finally arrived, honestly what the fuck took them so long? And a whole bunch of aliens were falling from the sky. Those by the way were called Chitauri or at least that was what Thor had called them and they looked like someone had thrown something and a robot into a blender and out came this. And there were a whole lot of them and more and more came out of the gigantic hole in the sky. She had to go ahead and play bait for one of those bigger ones, and she winced when her head calculated the cost for the repairs at the time. And she was sure there was more to come. This was going to be expensive. 

Finally some good news came in, Bruce was back and ready to fight! He let the Hulk out and it was amazing! They all fought together for a while, surprisingly well actually when Clint decided it would be a good idea to jump off a building. She caught him and flew him to a hopefully more secure building all the while wondering about the sanity of her comrades. The total force of destruction that the where together was extremely terrifying, or impressive depending on their cause. She opted for impressive but what was her humble opinion really worth? But even all of them together wouldn’t be enough if new Chitauri wouldn’t stop coming. There were just too many and she had a feeling that their mothership wasn’t hear yet, and she prayed to every god that it would never arrive. Than the military finally decided that they could need some help and War-machine came. She was incredibly thankful for that, the others and her might work good together but Rhodey and her, they didn’t need to work together or even to communicate, they were one. They fought together saved each other and over all they were the best team under the sun or at least in her opinion. The others seemed kind of confused over war-machine but the had no time to explain anything and the others just accepted it for what it was, help. What was no help was the missile that was going right into the heart of the city, ETA three minutes. Natasha had finally found the key to close the portal but that wouldn’t help anyone if the whole region was dead, especially because her bots were in the tower and they weren’t allowed to die. So she had to make one of the hardest decisions she ever made. She would fly that nuke into that portal, even if she would die doing it. Ever since she started as Iron Queen she knew she would die fighting and if she saved the whole city by doing so then that was what was going to happen. “Theres a nuke coming in and I know right where to put it.” She could hear the others protesting but they all knew that there was no other way. She cut the comms to everybody but Rhodey “Rhodey, honeybear, I’m going to have to fly that nuke into the portal and I think I might have to break the promise that we made back in College, we both know how high the chances are of me living after this.”  
“Don’t you dare Toni, please don’t!  
“Listen sourpatch, if there was any other way, any other options, I would gladly take them but there is nothing! I love you platypus, never forget that okay? And tell Pepper that I love her as well, okay, could you do that for me? And that I’m sorry, do that, would you?”  
She had to put more power in her thrusters now. She grapped the missile and directed it into the direction of the portal which was harder than it looked.  
“Oh Toni, of course I’m going to do that, but please, please don’t!” Rhodey sounded desperate and it broke her heart to hear him like that but sometimes even she had to do things she didn’t like. Still there was one thing left to do “ Jarvis, be a good boy for me today, please enact upon the protocol we made for this, I’m going to miss you Jarvis, please if I actually die say goodbye and love you from me to the bots, okay?”  
“Miss, please reconsider! We will all greatly miss you when you are gone!”  
She was near the entrance of the portal now.  
“Jarvis, I love you…”

And then  
silence, 

deafening silence,

darkness, 

No light.

And she fell, 

alone, 

the only thought on her mind;  
It’s over now.

Lightyears away from everything she ever held dear,  
in silence.  
And she  
fell, 

fell, 

fell… 

Until she didn’t,  
The darkness lit up again and the silence slowly disappeared, and oh god,  
she could open her eyes!  
Was this the afterlife? No, she was lying on the ground, looking into the worried face of Rhodey, around him the other avengers, all equally worried looking.  
“Please tell me nobody kissed me.”  
Rhodey looked as if he couldn’t decide wether to cry or to laugh and then did both.  
“Toni, never do that again, you hear me, you are never going to do that again!”  
“Platypus! You know I’m way to beautiful to die so young, I thought we made that clear with twenty?” “ Yeah, yeah Miss America, when are you ever going to stop mentioning that? Anyway I don’t know how true that is anymore, Pepper is coming ETA an hour and a half.”  
“Oh shit!” Rhodey helped her up and out of the suit and oops, note to self, she should never go into that suit without wearing the under-suit, her clothes were completely destroyed but she didn’t even like that shirt anyway so everything was fine.  
“Soooo, Shawarma, you all coming with me? And by the way we did win did we?”  
“Yes, to both Stark.” The others didn’t answer but they didn’t say no either so it was a yes for her. On their way to the Shawarma place they had to climb over a few alien parts which was kinda gross but thats what happens when you fight. The New Yorkers could take a lo, the city would be rebuild in no time. The Shawarma place was open which was kinda surprising but yeah, the New Yorkers could take a lot. The owners were still inside and happy to make them as much Shawarma as they liked, of course on her bill. And she had told them that she would pay for the whole repairs needed, which was probably another reason why they were so happy to serve them food. “Wait, Miss America, you are Miss America?” Man, could the Cap not keep up with her paste or was he just kinda confused right now? “Yeah I am Miss America, problem?” Ah another full body blusher, okay her new favorite activity was now; getting Captain America to blush.  
“No, no, not at all.”He looked like a child caught with one hand in the cookie jar which was kind of amusing so she led it slide.  
Over the cause of the meal she successfully got Pepper out of her mind, well that was until she could hear high-heels clicking in front of the restaurant. 

Toni hastily stood up when the door was opened.  
“Pepper what a surprise to see you, what are you doing around here?”  
“Oh no nothing, you know, my boss thought it was a good idea to sacrifice herself on national television without even informing me, I had to find out through TV, Toni.  
You didn’t even call me afterwards to tell me that you are in fact alive.” Over the course of her shouting she came nearer and nearer until she poked one of her perfectly manicured fingers into Tonis destroyed shirt.  
“Sorry Pepper, I totally forgot, please, I’m sorry!”  
Not her smartest move to avoid Peppers rage until Pepper had to personally march in,  
but still she had just died, give her some credit. Oddly enough, Pepper didn’t start shouting again, instead she grapped Toni and pulled her into a hug. Which, wow, she talking about surprises. She tried to soothingly pat her back like they did it in the movies but it mostly got worse. Pepper had probably broken a rip or two and her t-shirt was soaking wet because Pepper had started crying. The other Avengers looked at her and Pepper wide eyed staying silent and doing nothing at all to help her, traitors. When Pepper had finally calmed down enough to stop hugging her to death she observed everyone in the room calmly like a predator his prey. “Rhodey” a curt nod, “Avengers”. They all nodded. Toni decided to step in before pepper would kill somebody. “Avengers this is Virginia”Pepper” Potts, the quasi CEO of my company and one of my best friends alive, I have to warn you she can all destroy your live in a matter of second while in high-heels so high you wouldn’t even see her. She’s the best person on earth and probably in the entire universe.” And that was that. They ate, had another press conference, god how Toni hated those, and they moved in with her. 

Everything was fine.

**Author's Note:**

> Here we are again, did you like it? If you did, I would be extremely if you could write a quick comment, I'm honestly in love with them! Thanks to all of you for reading this, bye!


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